Various industrial processes routinely use liquid and other materials for a wide variety of purposes. It is often necessary or desirable to monitor the composition of the materials in order to accurately control the processes being performed. For example, a wood pulping process typically uses chemicals to produce wood pulp from wood chips. One example of a wood pulping process is a kraft wood pulping process, which is considered “circular” since chemicals used during the process are recovered and reused again in the process. To control the quality of the wood pulp being produced in the kraft wood pulping process, sensors can be used to measure characteristics of the chemicals being recycled.
The kraft wood pulping process and other processes routinely include harsh and hostile environments. Contaminants and scale can therefore quickly form on electrodes in the sensors used in these processes. This leads to measurement drift and a loss of measurement accuracy. As a result, these processes often cannot be controlled as accurately as possible, which can lead to process inefficiencies and monetary losses.